According to the Council of Public Relations Firms, which represents more than 100 of America’s leading public relations agencies, 70 percent of firms report that final 2011 revenues will be higher than in 2010. Only 13 percent anticipate lower revenues. Growth is coming from the consumer product, healthcare and energy sectors.

More than a third of those firms anticipate higher budgets in 2012. Some 60 percent report increased headcounts at the end of 2011. About three-quarters of firms expect an increase in social media services while more than a third expect growth in business-to-business, corporate communications and issues management.

The council notes one other trend for 2012: 57 percent of its agencies foresee partnering with outside firms to expand their capabilities.

AP StyleGuard provides automatic checking of documents for AP style. The software uses defined structure and rules similar to Word’s spelling and grammar checking. AP says the plugin ensures consistency and saves writers the time spent manually referring to the AP Stylebook. The rules will updated throughout the year.

The software is only available for PCs at this time. It will cost $59.99 for a one-year subscription. Until its general launch on April 1 the plugin is available for an introductory rate of $49.99 a year.

Earlier this month three of six agency owners and recruiters interviewed by blogger Arik C. Hanson said the ability to tell a story was the leading trait they want to see in PR professionals. They believe storytelling reflects the facility to identify themes and execute a strategy. Yet when many of their peers screen applicants, they ask for experience that exactly matches the job they’re offering. They’re focused on the product, not the process, like the ability to build social networks, negotiate for information or get along with others.

For those in marketing communications, here’s the wake-up call: financial planners have discovered the power of story. In a column for MarketWatch, MIT’s AgeLab Director Joseph Coughlin said the traditional model of financial planning won’t work in these unsettling times. Neither will an appeal to reason through a recitation of statistics. He believes advisers who tell stories that elicit emotion and inspire people to act will achieve greater success–for their clients and themselves.

“We’ve got to be good storytellers to get that emotion, to make us relevant, responsive and realistic for what the consumer needs today to plan for tomorrow.”

Let’s hope the people who hire are willing to make that investment.

Take the piece “Why impulse spending can be a good thing” by Katherine Rosman, who writes the Checks & Balances column about finance and marriage for the Wall Street Journal. The article is designed to read like a short story with comments, unfolding through scenes with increasing drama. We want to determine what happens between Rosman and her husband Joe, who in their struggles to mesh their opposites-attract financial styles have become persons of interest.

The article is structured in three parts. The first details a recent event, the second one that took place a while ago, the third the night the two met. All involve charity auctions. All create an orderly march backward in time, from a seemingly frivolous exchange to a defining moment. Each segment seems ordinary yet together they build toward a quiet but profound insight you’d see in the work of Anne Tyler or Anna Quindlen.

The parts consist of anecdotes, all of which bring to life the article’s theme—that contrary to popular wisdom occasional impulse spending can provide rewards to even the most budget-minded couples. Those mini stories also illustrate a greater wisdom: we can argue about spending but what we really value is not the behavior but the relationship. The real prize isn’t the money, it’s the person.

When I worked as a writing coach for a newspaper owned by the publisher of the Wall Street Journal I studied briefly with the great Roy Peter Clark. Now vice president of the Poynter Institute, Clark taught us to use the tools of fiction writers while rigorously adhering to the facts. Structuring a story that way is more than playing dress-up. It’s a process to present and order events with all of the immediacy and emotional resonance of direct experience.

It’s good to see other non-fiction writers have adopted the storyteller’s technique. Using those tools, Rosman ratchets up the conflict between spouses with a deceptive calm that shows rather than tells about their relationship. The story flows without effort. Even the ending feels natural, a surprising valentine to financial and emotional conservatives everywhere.

Talk about impulse control.

Online retailer Amazon.com said today that it’s selling more electronic books than printed versions. The company says it sells 105 e-books for every 100 physical copies it sells.

Next Tuesday rival Barnes & Noble will ratchet up the competition when it introduces a new generation Nook e-reader to compete with Amazon’s Kindle.

B&N chief executive William Lynch told the Wall Street Journal that despite a late start his company has captured 25% of the digital books market. It has also grabbed a good chunk of the market for electronic magazine subscriptions. “We’ve also sold more than 1.5 million magazine subscription orders and single copy sales on the Nook newsstand.”

The irony of Tuesday’s announcement (or maybe the marketing strategy) is that it happens during the week of BookExpo America (BEA), which bills itself as the largest publishing event in North America. It has traditionally promoted paper copies. This year BEA will co-host a session on electronic publications with the IDPF Digital Book Conference 2011, at the Javits Center in New York City.

As of March 7 the website listed 10 authors who are willing to talk with fans. They range from Brad Thor, author of The Athena Project, to Lisa McMann, author of Cryer’s Cross; Goodnight, Tweetheart‘s Teresa Medeiros, and music and sports author Chuck Klosterman.

Here’s how it works. Visitors click on the “talk to” button below an author’s photo and type their question. Then they check back for a response. No word from S&S on whether the system will offer live chat at a future date.

Writers with their own websites might consider doing the same in real time.

Social media continues to attract more viewers and advertisers, according to comScore’s report “The 2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review.” Nine out of every 10 U.S. Internet users visits a social networking site every month, accounting for 12% of all time spent online in 2010, the digital measurement firm reports in the whitepaper. Facebook leads the pack of sites that receive that traffic with nearly 154 million unique visitors last year.

Advertisers have followed, serving up 4.9 trillion display ads, an increase of 23% over 2009. Social networking publishers delivered 34% of those ads, up 11% over the previous year.

Creatives interested in marketing their work on a shoestring might want to follow the trend. As they say on Wall Street, don’t fight the tape.

We said we live in a resort area and complimented her on the sign hanging on the door: “We treat our visitors like family.”

She laughed. “But we treat our family like crap.”

“That part of the sign must have fallen off.”

Instead of touring the town, we headed to the post office. We have to carry heavy client training manuals home and decided that we’ll never get them on the airplane without hocking the rental car. So we’ll mail them. The guy at the post office was very friendly. Then we drove around Lake Dora and through Eustis (a tad too commercial) around Lake Eustis and north on CR 452 past Lake Yale (an OK place but few trees for that all-important shade in summer). Then west to Leesburg and Lake Griffin and Lake Harris and finally south to the Rosen Centre Hotel on International Drive. Dinner at Thai Thani, a chain that didn’t feel like a franchise, its interior dark and ornamental, the food spicy, the service attentive.

Tuesday, Jan. 11. The Rosen is a tall, wide hotel that aspires to elegance and succeeds in most ways. The public spaces are vast and tastefully decorated, the rooms small but comfortable. Some guests complained there were no refrigerators or microwaves in the rooms but we didn’t miss them. The hotel charges extra for everything—parking, Internet and use of the spa—but does a good job with housekeeping and food service.

Breakfast in the Café Gauguin was hot and fresh, a buffet with everything from oatmeal to eggs to fruit, although the orange juice wasn’t as good at the liquid gold in Sebring. We sat through a sales meeting in the afternoon for our client Aqua Glass, then joined a group dinner (14 of us) at the Everglades Restaurant in the Rosen. Very elegant, with three wait staff and pictures drawn on plates in edible gel. Big, rich, expensive meal but a nice way to kickoff the show, in the company of some very interesting and considerate people.

Sunset on Lake Eustis

Driving south on Route 27 from Gainesville to Sebring we took a right on Lake Minneola Road because the name sounded nice and headed into the small town of Clermont. In the historic downtown we found clean, quiet streets for a Saturday, mile temperatures (long-sleeved shirt weather, maybe close to 60). Stopped at Liz’s Ice Cream & Deli for lunch with a table of about 10 senior citizens and Liz behind the counter making sandwiches. Very, very friendly people. Two were Kiwanians and one a Rotarian, in their 60s and 70s and maybe early 80s. They talked about sex and getting drunk the previous night. Must be the Florida heat.

We drove around the south shore of Lake Minneola and were impressed with the public spaces—beach and pavilion, walking and bike paths and what looked like an amphitheater under construction. Big lake with some chop from the wind but it wasn’t undergoing eutrophication as so many of the shallow lakes in this part of central Florida.

After lunch we drove to Sebring and checked into the Inn on the Lake, a beautiful three-story hotel in the Spanish style across the highway from Lake Jackson, with a view of Little Lake Jackson from the room. There was a pool for lounging and groups of friendly, talkative people. Golfers we guessed from the tournament sign-in sheet in the lobby. Most in their 60s, a few younger, a few older. They sat in the back of the lobby by the fireplace and talked about getting laid. What’s with this generation?

Drove through an industrial area for dinner at the Blue Crab, a cross between a restaurant and clam shack, a place for seniors, blue-collar retirees and (finally) locals. It’s owned by a couple of bikers. The waitresses looked lean and nicotine burned. Ours was named Mel. Before she took our order she introduced herself as Big Bird and said that her boss, Bill, calls her Turkey Buzzard. She leaned toward us and in a conspiratorial whisper said, “I told him, ‘You call me that because I eat a lot of shit around here, so it must be true.’” Then she reared back quickly as if she’d given offense. Not at all. If she wants to burn her ears she should hike up the road and watch the old folks strut their nine irons.

Sunday, Jan. 9. Finally we have reached the summit: at the Inn on the Lake the orange juice is excellent, fresh-squeezed, the waitress said, by a local company. After breakfast we drove south to the small town of Lake Placid to see if lived up to its name. It did, maybe a bit too much. In Sebring the business district consisted of a couple of stores and a consignment shop on a rotary. Here there isn’t even a business district. And once outside town things got thin rather quickly. Around the lake some homes backed onto water but they were crushed together, on busy highways and fully exposed to the sun. Not much fun in August.

Lunch at the Tower View Restaurant in Lake Placid—second time we stumbled onto one of the more popular restaurants for locals. Then north to the Sebring International Raceway, home of the 12-hour Grand Prix, where we spent half an hour watching small noisy cars race around a very long track.

Back home to have a drink by the pool, dinner at the hotel restaurant and a wild evening doing laundry. Tomorrow the real world beckons as we head to Orlando to cover the International Builders Show at the Orange County Convention Center.